Courting disaster?

So far, plans for a new courthouse in downtown Stockton are on track. So far.

The Record

So far, plans for a new courthouse in downtown Stockton are on track. So far.

But in his proposed budget, Gov. Jerry Brown this week wants to eliminate an additional $200 million from the courts' budget statewide. That will at least delay some courthouse construction projects.

In October, the state Judicial Council voted to indefinitely delay seven construction projects because building funds were being diverted to keep the courts operating.

And Thursday, the council recommended that projects in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Fresno and Nevada City be put off.

The ax hasn't fallen on our project yet. Local court officials are hopeful but understandably nervous.

The $273 million, 13-story, 30-courtroom courthouse project is scheduled to get under way in fiscal 2014-15.

It can't come too soon for those who work there or members of the public called there for official business. Two of the five elevators are broken. The ventilation system is in need of cleaning. Water pours in when it rains, rendering some courtrooms unusable.

(County supervisors are trying to decide whether money should be spent to keep the building functioning until a new one can be built. If everything goes perfectly, that could be four years. So the answer to maintaining the building is obviously yes, for the safety of employees there and the public.)

And more disturbing, those appearing for trial are routinely marched in shackles through public hallways, a danger to the public and to the defendants.

This mid-20th century building is being used in a 21st-century world. Times have changed and so have needs.

But the shift of money proposed by the Brown administration is understandable, too. The budget recommends $3.1 billion in the 2013-14 fiscal year. Virtually none of the $1.2 billion stripped out of the judiciary budget in recent years is coming back.

Locally, that budget has meant the shuttering of courtrooms in Tracy and Lodi and an end to small claims court, the court that used to offer the easiest, lowest-cost access to people wanting to settle disputes. San Joaquin County is not alone; six of every 10 counties statewide have reduced hours, cut services and closed courtrooms.

What Brown proposes is to adopt 11 recommendations made last month by the Judicial Council to increase court fees and reduce services even more. The proposals are designed to offset some of the $200 million in cuts Brown warns the state's trial courts will have to make in the 2014-15 fiscal year. He plans to borrow $200 million earmarked earlier for courthouse construction to get the courts through the coming fiscal year.

What's this mean to the public?

If you want to fight a traffic ticket by mail in your home county, the fee will go to $50. The price for a paper copy of a court record will double to $1 a page. And the cost of clerks to search and retrieve multiple case files will go to $10 for every record searched.

There's also hope money can be saved by not destroying records related to marijuana possession, providing transcripts of preliminary hearings only in homicide cases, and not collecting Social Security numbers on court orders for debt collection.

Most of us never see the inside of a courtroom, save those periodic summonses for jury duty. But when we need help from our courts, delays and expense only add to the general feeling that they don't work.

By and large, they do work. They certainly beat no court system, something that seems more and more real with every budget cut.